"No, not at all."
WE ARE FRIENDS NORMAN AND HARRY.
"Yes, we are."
THEN BRING BACK THE ENTITIES.
"He just refuses to understand," Harry said. "Jerry, for God's sake, we can't do it!"
YOU ARE HUMOROUS HARRY. MAKE IT AGAIN.
He's definitely reading strong emotional reactions as some kind of manifestation, Norman thought. Was this his idea of play - to make a provocation to the other party, and then to be amused by their responses? Was he delighted to see the vivid emotions brought on by the squid? Was this his idea of a game?
HARRY MAKE IT AGAIN. HARRY MAKE IT AGAIN.
"Hey, man," Harry said angrily. "Get off my back!"
THANK YOU. I AM LIKING THAT. IT WAS RED ALSO. NOW YOU WILL PLEASE BRING BACK THE ENTITIES GONE.
Norman had an idea. "Jerry," he said, "if you wish the entities back, why don't you bring them back?"
I AM NOT PLEASED TO DO THIS.
"But you could do it, if you wanted to."
I CAN DO ANY THING.
"Yes, of course you can. So why don't you bring back the entities you desire?"
NO. I AM NOT HAPPY TO DO THIS.
"Why not?" Harry said.
HEY MAN GET OFF MY BACK.
"No offense, Jerry," Norman said quickly. There was no reply on the screen. "Jerry?"
The screen did not respond.
"He's gone again," Harry said. He shook his head. "God knows what the little bastard will do next."
FURTHER ANALYSIS
Norman went up to the lab to see beth, but she was asleep, curled up on her couch. In sleep, she looked quite beautiful. It was odd after all the time down here she should seem so radiant. It was as if the harshness had gone out of her features. Her nose did not seem so sharp any more; the line of the mouth was softer, fuller. He looked at her arms, which had been sinewy, veins bulging. The muscles seemed smoother, more feminine somehow.
Who knows? he thought. After so many hours down here, you're no judge of anything. He climbed back down the ladder and went to his bunk. Harry was already there, snoring loudly.
Norman decided to take another shower. As he stepped under the spray, he made a startling discovery.
The bruises which had covered his body were gone. Anyway, almost gone, he thought, staring down at the remaining patches of yellow and purple. They had healed within hours. He moved his limbs experimentally and realized that the pain had gone, too. Why? What had happened? For a moment he thought this was all a dream, or a nightmare, and then he thought: No, it's just the atmosphere. Cuts and bruises healing faster in the high-pressure environment. It wasn't anything mysterious. Just an atmospheric effect.
He toweled himself as dry as he could with the damp towel, and then went back to his bunk. Harry was still snoring, as loud as ever.
Norman lay on his back, stared at the red humming coils of the ceiling heater. He had an idea, and got out of bed, and shifted Harry's talker from the base of his throat to one side. Immediately the snores changed to a soft, high-pitched hiss.
Much better, he thought. He lay on the damp pillow, and was almost immediately asleep. He awoke with no sense of passing time - it might have been only a few seconds - but he felt refreshed. He stretched and yawned, and got out of bed.
Harry still slept. Norman moved the talker back, and the snores resumed. He went into D Cyl, to the console. Still on the screen were the words:
HEY MAN GET OFF MY BACK.
"Jerry?" Norman said. "Are you there, Jerry?"
The screen did not respond. Jerry wasn't there. Norman looked at the stack of printouts to one side. I really should go over this stuff, he thought. Because something troubled him about Jerry. Norman couldn't put his finger on it, but even if one imagined the alien as a spoiled child-king, Jerry's behavior didn't make sense. It just didn't add up. Including the last message.
HEY MAN GET OFF MY BACK.
Street talk? Or just imitating Harry? In any case it wasn't Jerry's usual mode of communication. Usually Jerry was ungrammatical and sort of spacy, talking about entities and awareness. But from time to time he would become sharply colloquial. Norman looked at the sheets.
WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK AFTER A SHORT BREAK FOR THESE MESSAGES FROM OUR SPONSOR.
That was one example. Where had that come from? It sounded like Johnny Carson. Then why didn't Jerry sound like Johnny Carson all the time? What caused the shift?
Then, too, there was the problem of the squid. If Jerry liked to scare them, if he enjoyed rattling their cage and seeing them jump, why use a squid? Where had that idea come from? And why only a squid? Jerry seemed to enjoy manifesting different things. So why hadn't he produced giant squid one time, great white sharks another time, and so on? Wouldn't that provide a greater challenge to his abilities?
Then there was the problem of Ted. Ted had been playing with Jerry at the time he was killed. If Jerry liked to play so much, why would he kill off a player? It just didn't make sense.
Or did it?
Norman sighed. His trouble lay in his assumptions. Norman was assuming that the alien had logical processes similar to his own. But that might not be true. For one thing, Jerry might operate at a much faster metabolic rate, and thus have a different sense of time. Kids played with a toy only until they got tired of it; then they changed to another. The hours that seemed so painfully long to Norman might be only a few seconds in the consciousness of Jerry. He might just be playing with the squid for a few seconds, until he dropped it for another toy.
Kids also had a poor idea about breaking things. If Jerry didn't know about death, then he wouldn't mind killing Ted, because he would think the death was just a temporary event, a "humorous" manifestation by Ted. He might not realize he was actually breaking his toys.